Chretien Lafreniere

Chretien Lafreniere (1730-31 March 1791) was a French merchant and religious society member, running a spice business.

Biography
Born in 1730, as the third son of a wealthy importer of spices, Chretien Lafreniere was destined for the Church. He studied at the Sorbonne and entered seminary school in 1750, but when his father and elder siblings died in a shipwreck off the coast of Mauritius, he left the seminary to take the reins of his family's business. Most of his income, however, was spent joining and founding numerous secret societies and fringe religious groups. By the time of the French Revolution he was living in hiding, likely from creditors.

Lafreniere was a major ally of Francois de la Serre, the Grand Master of the French Rite of the Templar Order. As a main leader of the Templar Order, Lafreniere was the right-hand man of Francois until his assassination in 1789 by rogue Templar Francois-Thomas Germain. Lafreniere sent him a letter to warn him, but it never reached him. Lafreniere spent most of his money on importing guns from Bavaria and purchasing gunpowder so that he could seize control of the Templars from Germain's faction in 1791, but his armory at La Halle Aux Bles was blown up by Assassin Order member Arno Dorian, who was misled by Germain into thinking that Lafreniere was behind the death of Francois de la Serre. At the Cimetiere des Innocents in Ventre de Paris in the Halles district of Paris, Lafreniere had a meeting with his fellow Templars, but he was killed there by Arno. His death left Germain in control of the Templars with his ring of supporters, and Dorian set out to stop them to redeem himself for killing Lafreniere.